Konare calls for the building of a new Africa

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- African Union Commission Chairperson, Alpha Omar Konare Thursday called for the building of a new Africa, where democracy, peace, institutional stability and genuine citizenship based on a shared vision of the future would be daily realities.
Speaking at the opening of the conference of the intellectuals from African and the Diaspora here, Konare reaffirmed his conviction that "it is that part of the future, which needs to be explored," comparing the participants with "pilgrims of the future ready to meet any challenge" to build a new Africa.
He also called for the moulding of a new Africa, which will no longer fear the divergent forces conveyed by political pluralism or multiplicity of identities associated with cultural diversity, but "will be able to recognise, cherish and promote them".
The former Malian President wants a new Africa, where religious pluralism and ethnic pluralism, far from leading to tragedies deplored here and there, like in Rwanda, will be rethought and reinvested.
The warlords in Africa must have at least the same fate and must be treated the same way as the coup-makers who jeopardise democratic processes, the AU commission chairperson observed, adding that he wanted to believe in that new Africa, which makes the current Dakar conference meaningful.
Konare is convinced that the continent's revival is "something possible, something that its children, here and abroad, can achieve intellectually".
The Africa, which unites us, is the one, which patiently recovers its memory, a memory in which the wounds left by the painful experiences are not completely healed," Konare said.
Despite all those difficulties it encountered in the past, Africa still stands up, and it is up to its children, particularly the intellectuals from the continent and the Diaspora, to "found this future Africa," he noted However, Konare added, such a responsibility is of urgency as the world, which includes Africa, is now more than ever built on knowledge, as expressed in the dematerialization of production that we have been witnessing in industrialised countries".
"It is in reproduction and knowledge that the African identity will have to be expressed," Konare said, hoping the conference will "find ways and means to lay the foundation of a new contract between the intellectuals and their peoples".
Konare reiterated his belief that "Africa is one and indivisible", and would be built with the intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora.